I had a
marvellous time in London on Tuesday - it was spent shopping, then people-watching, and then with friends for dinner. I was originally supposed to meet with one of my friends (the others couldn't make it), but then two others unexpectedly showed up. By the end of the night we had been giggling and laughing so hard that our faces hurt. It struck me later on, that when I eventually leave the UK I am going to experience a profound emptiness as a result of my friends not being just around the corner, or a bus ride away, which are things that I've taken for granted over the past few years. I suppose the only solace is that when I do return, they will just be a phone call away, and they will always be here... We have a chemistry together that I will miss deeply.
In other news I've been planning a surprise (50th) birthday party for my mum. It is scheduled to take place on Monday night, and, fingers crossed, everything will fall into place according to plan. It's admittedly somewhat difficult coordinating everything from this side of the ocean. My mum can smell a plan from miles away though - it's as if she's equipped with radars, ESP, or something similar (this was particularly scary during my teenage years). The theme is Hawaii - but there are no plans to coerce anyone into wearing grass skirts and coconut bras. Yet.
I know that it isn't going to happen, but I'm hoping to have some time to myself over the spring break. Admittedly I do feel a bit stretched thin - sometimes it can feel as though I need 42 Andreas just to attend to everything and everyone in my life.
But enough whinging. Hurrah for:
*Spending time with my parents
*My sweetheart visiting in a week
*Travel plans for the summer
*Academic life drawing to a close
*Duty free shopping
*Good-ass jeans
*Heaps and heaps of Japanese food
*The promise of springtime weather
My flight leaves tomorrow afternoon. I'll catch up with you all from home.
rough waters
I admit that my love life has not always been smooth sailing lately. Relationships can be difficult - being such a volatile blend of emotions, fears, hurt, and expectations - and thus require some degree of work. Accordingly, I have discovered that relationships are very much about sacrifices, compromises, and the willingness to break self-imposed rules, which is by no means easy. I am trying to handle all of this with grace but it can be overwhelming at times, so please bear with me.
For those who are wondering, the answer is no. We love and need each other too much for that, and it would not be the right solution. We are navigating rough waters. But - if my eyes don't deceive me - I do see a glimpse of the shore. And that is enough to keep this ship afloat.
dreams
The dampness of my pillowcase was the only evidence that it had happened: that somehow, unbeknownst to me, and for reasons that have continued to elude me throughout the day, I had been crying, and by ‘crying’ I ought to clarify and say that I had been soaking my sheets with tears last night. I awoke with a feeling of profound and utter loss, and what frightened me most was that I had no idea what had passed in the depths of my subconscious mind – the mind that I was so sure had been overridden by sleep. I felt my face; yes, it was sticky and tearstained. I felt my pillow; half of it was cold and damp. And within me, somehow the threat of an unbearable emptiness was growing.
I have, admittedly, felt rather out of sync lately, as though the gears in my mind, body, and being are refusing to slide into place when required to. Unusual bouts of irritability last week have since been replaced with the same feeling that consumed me in the dark hours of this early morning – a feeling so difficult to describe, and yet so tangible in its omnipresence. I tell others with confidence that I am a ‘long-term planner’; these days I say it but do not sound as sure of myself – as though someone else’s voice is manipulating my thoughts. I wonder what I’m doing here. More often than not, I can stare at a blank sheet of paper for hours, with a messy half-completed equation somewhere on the page being the sole indication of progress. I can read for hours and not register a single idea. Or, sometimes I stare at words – forty seconds ought to do it, and today’s word was ‘school’ – until they don’t even resemble words anymore, let alone words that I actually know and use. School. Why am I still here? What am I doing? What is progress? Sometimes I think that progress is not necessarily the ability to move forward, but instead having the wherewithal to move backwards and still accomplish something. These days, accomplishing
anything – be it the remaining halves of equations – is satisfactory, but regrettably, it does not happen often.
This has been a moving-backwards sort of weekend, I suppose. I have not really felt like communicating with anyone for a few days now, having shunned my boyfriend a few hours ago. Of the few remaining comforts in my life, the best one involves shutting off my computer: I cannot be contacted, I do not have to reciprocate when I am, and I can float in a world called ‘Appear Offline’ as and when I wish. I stare at the pavement when I walk; when I look up, my mind does not register with any great clarity that those other moving silhouettes are human beings possibly also wondering the same things as I:
What am I doing here? What does this all mean? Where do I go now? I have been accused of not really looking
at people, but I’ll also be the first to readily admit that it’s true. Sometimes I want to be left alone. There are times when I have no desire to share my world with anybody, particularly not this weekend, even if sharing my world means eye contact with another individual – I can feel a bit as though my privacy has been invaded; that people are looking at me and saying, in their own indirect manner, ‘Yes, I have you figured out’. The other day, I walked by a man with the most penetrating stare, and although I did my best to avert his gaze, it was too late: ‘Why so down, love?’ I hadn’t even figured myself out at that point, and I was not particularly receptive to the idea of anyone else doing it first.
The most exciting – and indicative – promises of progress used to take shape in potential career opportunities that sprang up from time to time – my personal gateway out of the academic world and into the next phase of my life. They still arise, and have been doing so, but increasingly, I have been shrugging them off, and pretending that I don’t notice. I am no longer sure where I’m headed, or even if I’m headed in the right direction. I used to think that I had it all figured out; these days I feel more satisfaction in drifting. And yet I hate myself for doing it – for turning a blind eye to things that are important, for distancing myself from people who mean something in my life, merely for the simple (and temporary) pleasure of pretending that life isn’t complicated and fooling myself into thinking that I am
not being overwhelmed and that there
aren’t problems that I need to address. These days I say most things through gritted teeth: it’s all smiles and business. I might end sentences like this! Or say, no, of course I don’t mind! I am screaming inside.
The one thing I crave most is the comfort and silence of my bed at the end of the day, and the sleep that is usually associated with it. I crave those eight hours in which my mind switches off and reverts to its drugged-stupor mode, in which I think about – and more importantly, don’t
need to think about – any of those million and one things beleaguering my waking consciousness. There is comfort in the stillness of cold nights, under a warm, enveloping duvet. And yet, somehow, a glaring aloneness that I dread: I want to be left alone, but I do not want to be
alone.
But the mind is a complex thing. I do not look forward to tonight’s slumber. I have been wondering, all day, which thoughts should somehow choose to seep – even into my subconscious, closed-off mind – and haunt my dreams tonight.
